Statement

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand issued the following statement today after voting against cloture on legislation to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires:

"I'm opposing this deal in its current form because right now we need to focus on the middle class, who are always left behind, not the people at the very top, who are doing just fine in this economy.

"Although this deal includes important measures I have fiercely advocated for, extending Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy will saddle our children with billions of dollars of debt. With unemployment near 10 percent and a growing budget deficit, every dollar in this deal should be spent in a way that creates jobs and gets our economy growing, and tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires do not create jobs and will not help our economy grow. This kind of fiscal recklessness is bad for our economy and bad for future generations."